Your Bones
by morbid bookworm
Summary: Will has a nightmare. Who do you think is the first person he goes to for reassurance? And in the middle of the night no less? Pre-Solangelo fluffiness. T because I can't remember if there are swears in this thing. Title is from the amazing song by Monsters and Men.


**Hey guys! So this is not the next chapter of Three Times. That is going to be a long time coming, because I promised myself I wouldn't let myself post it until I'd finished writing my friend's birthday present. P.S Her birthday was like a month ago. But I wanted to write Solangelo, so this one-shot happened, along with half of another one-shot thingy you guys will be excited to see, which I will finish as soon as I get the inspiration to.**

**But who says nothing good ever comes out of procrastination? This is my little apology gift to you guys. It takes place maybe six moths after the giant war? Will and Nico are at that awkward stage where they like-bordering-on-love each other and are already friends, and have the vague inkling that the other person likes them back, but they're both too stupid to do anything about it. I hope you like it! **

**I don't own Percy Jackson. Or anything, really. I'm broke.**

**Beta'd by Abbie Dabbie.**

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><p>Will did not quite wake up. Not really. He didn't <em>think<em> he was dreaming anymore, but he still felt like he was unconscious. His head was spinning; he felt sick in his bones, in his skin and in his stomach from the nightmare that had crept up on him in his sleep and practically swallowed him whole.

Shaking slightly, Will reached up and pushed his sweaty hair away from his forehead. He was hot and muggy all over, and the sheets and blanket suddenly felt like they were hot iron chains. Gasping, he kicked himself free and swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up and clutching his chest as the world swam blurrily before his eyes. His heart was pounding frantically. Worried he might be going into cardiac arrest, Will pressed two fingers to the side of his neck and massaged slowly, hoping it would bring his blood pressure down.

It did help a bit, and he took deep, diaphragmatic breaths for a few minutes before dropping his hand and looking around dazedly. The large windows in the Apollo cabin, so useful for letting in sunlight during the day, were pitch black.

Great gods of Olympus. What on Gaea's semi-green, not-destroyed earth was he doing awake? He shouldn't be even remotely conscious for another four hours at least.

Will passed his hands over his face and through his damp hair. He tried to remember what he had been dreaming about. The nightmare flitted in and out of his memory, but never long enough to get a good look at it, and somehow not being able to remember was worse than remembering. Still unable to bring himself to full consciousness, Will felt stripped bare and vulnerable, as if the nightmare might slip into the twilight world and sneak up behind him.

The eerie feeling was so unsettling he stumbled to his feet, cursing his terrible night vision and almost bashed his head into the bunk above his own. Will didn't remember deciding to leave his cabin, but he suddenly found himself crossing the grass next to the basketball court and ending up on the front steps of the Hades cabin, dressed in nothing but his pajama pants and a dark green tee-shirt, and face to face with a sleepy and very confused Hazel Lévesque.

"Will? What are you doing here?" Hazel was wearing a modest black silk robe over her nightdress. She clutched the edges tighter against the draft coming through the open door.

"I was just . . ." Will trailed off, realizing that he didn't have a blessed thing to say. On the other hand, there was only ever one reason he would dare go to Cabin 13 in the middle of the night.

"Um . . . Is Nico . . . Is he here?"

Hazel looked at him with bemusement. "It's barely one o clock. My brother is out 'running errands' for our father; he won't be back for hours."

"Oh . . ." Will blinked fuzzily. His brain was having a hard time processing everything. He hadn't _planned_ on making a surprise visit to the Hades cabin, much less what to do if Nico answered the door, much less what to do if Nico _didn't_.

Hazel must have sensed his less than lucid state, or maybe she just took pity on his sorry self, because she looked around cautiously and then straightened, tightening the belt of her robe self-consciously.

"Would you . . . would you like to come in and wait for him?"

"Eh?" Will flushed. "I can't . . . I mean . . ."

Hazel actually laughed. "It's okay. You came all this way. It must be important, right?"

Will tried to shake his head, but it made the world spin. His eyelids were as heavy as anvils; every time he blinked, it took a monumental effort to open his eyes again, but he did anyway, trying to communicate without words as his mouth was practically numb with gummy sleep. _No, no. It isn't important at all, I'm just delusional and sleep deprived, and your brother has a weird way of making everything in my life turn its head, which I find very comforting for some misguided reason._

Gods he needed to sleep.

But then Hazel was leading him inside and directing him to sit on one of the beds, which turned out to be really, really comfortable. Will hadn't been in the Hades cabin since Nico had made good on his threat to redecorate, but he did remember yelling a lot when his favorite patient had completely disregarded his orders and summoned an army of the dead to carry out the interior design plans he, Hazel and Annabeth had come up with.

This new look was much nicer than the previous vampire's lair. The coffin beds had been replaced with actual bunk beds, but there were only two, one on either side of the room, and they were practically king sized, with elegant posts of polished ebony and mountains of pillows, blankets and comforters. The Persian rugs were threaded with what Will was pretty sure was real gold, and the walls were slippery polished black onyx stone studded with raw gems and soft dark wood. The god of riches indeed.

The small shrine in the corner was the same, a table littered with various precious gems and bones, and tiny Hades statue that looked awfully familiar.

Outside Will had seen the same ghost fire torches as had always been there, but inside there was a real, red and orange fire burning in an ornately carved fireplace of marble and black iron, depicting scenes that Will had no wish to examine too closely. The effect was not exactly cheery, but the fire filled the whole room with a quiet kind of warmth that made Will want to curl up on the overstuffed couch or the high-backed arm chair in front of the fireplace and stare into the flames until the sparks turned to watery smudges of red and gold. The quiet atmosphere made Will afraid to speak in more than a whisper, as if anything louder might wake the ghosts.

Will flopped onto the lower bunk of the bed Hazel had directed him to, realizing too late that it must be where Nico slept. The numerous blankets and pillows, the fluffy comforter and even the sheets were black, and smelled just like the bed in the 'Long Term Stay' wing had after Nico had spent three days there.

Not that Will had checked.

Hazel was saying something and smiling kindly at him, but Will only heard her voice from far away, as if he was underwater, and couldn't understand. He blinked, trying to clear the fuzzies from his peripheral vision. His eyes felt dry and scratchy. He blinked again.

On the next blink he couldn't muster the willpower to pry his lids back open, so he just let himself slide down into the rising darkness with something like relief.

* * *

><p>Hazel watched in surprise as Will Solace suddenly slumped onto her brother's pillows and didn't move again. He had obviously taken her words to 'make yourself at home' to heart.<p>

Sighing, she twitched the separation curtain back into place, wondering what her brother would do with him when he got back. Had Nico ever been in this situation? Had he ever been responsible for someone else's happiness? It was almost like . . . well, it was almost like Will had a crush on her brother. Hazel wasn't sure what the modern society thought of that. There had been a boy at her school, seventy years ago, Edward Hernandez. He had been a year older than her and Sammy, and one day a teacher had caught him kissing another boy from outside of school. She remembered the teachers shouting, the other kids' whispers and awful words, and the tense, worried look on Sammy's face as he tried to laugh it all off.

They hadn't seen Edward Hernandez since. He had been pulled out of school, and nobody heard from him again. The other boy, the one not from her school who had been kissing Edward, had hung around the school gates the next few days, looking hopefully around every time someone came out. Eventually Sammy had gone up to him during one recess while Hazel watched from a little ways away. She saw the other boy's face fall as Sammy had put on hand on his shoulder and explained what happened.

'Will they be alright?' Hazel had asked when he had come back.

Sammy's face had been unusually serious as he answered. 'I don't know.'

After she had returned to the world of the living, Hazel had sometimes wondered what had happened to Edward. He was most likely dead after all that time and she had considered asking for Nico's help communicating with his ghost, but had never found the time.

Hazel grimaced into her pillow. Unlike her brother's dour decor, her bed was made up of a heavy brown comforter, pale gold velvet blankets, creamy sheets and several fluffy pillows in dark red, green and purple.

She desperately hoped nothing like what had happened to Edward would ever happen to Will. She liked the son of Apollo very much; he was kind and cheerful, and made her brother smile in a way she had never seen before. He made Nico happy, and Hazel had occasionally found herself wondering if _that_ had more to do with her brother's lack of a girlfriend, than the fact that he was antisocial, awkward, depressed, mostly nocturnal and radiated death.

Still, whether Nico liked Will that way or not, Hazel doubted he had ever been in this position before. Had her brother ever been the person who was wanted or needed? What would he do, stay, or run away? Hazel loved her brother very much, but he was not the kindest or most considerate person when dealing with another person's feelings.

Hazel burrowed deeper into her bed. She would wait and see what happened. And tomorrow she would talk to Frank, and ask him about modern views towards same sex relationships. Nico would need all the help he could get.

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><p>When Nico came home, around three in the morning and long after the fire had died down to a few glowing embers, the last thing he expected to see was Will Solace in his bed.<p>

He had been rounding up a couple of unwilling spirits that had escaped through the Doors of Death during the war and were giving Thanatos some difficulty. He had finished early, but was still exhausted, and desperately wanted Apollo to get his butt in gear so the sun could rise as quickly as it could and he could get a at least a few uninterrupted hours of sleep.

So when Nico trudged through his cabin door, it took him a few seconds to realize there was someone in there who wasn't supposed to be. The first thing he did was kneel in front of the fireplace and throw a few fresh logs onto the dying embers, muttering a prayer to Hestia as he did. Then, almost unwillingly, he turned to see a familiar mop of blonde hair resting on his pillows. He cursed his inattentiveness – if he had being paying attention he would have sensed the person's life force from a mile away.

Imagine his surprise when it turned out to be none other than Will Solace curled up in his shadowy bunk, fists curled near his mouth, breathing softly and evenly.

Nico glanced towards the sheet that separated Hazel's side of the room from his as if to ask if she was seeing what he was seeing. Obviously she wasn't, as she was probably asleep and wouldn't be able to see through the sheet anyway. Shaking his head at himself, Nico dropped his sword by the foot of his bed, not bothering to remove his jacket, and sat on the edge of his mattress.

"Will." Nico touched his shoulder gently. Will opened his eyes, but there was no light behind them and Nico thought he wouldn't remember anything in the morning.

"Hey," Will whispered.

"Hey," Nico said just as quietly. Unbeknownst to him, his face softened substantially into something almost tender as his gaze rested on Will's drowsy, befuddled face. "What are you doing here?"

Will glanced around, seeming surprised to find himself in the Hades cabin. "I don't know . . . Nightmare . . . wanted to see you."

He reached out with a clumsy hand and touched Nico's cheek. Nico leaned into it, forgetting, in the dim light and Will's sleepy blue eyes, to be wary of his touch. "You're covered in blood . . ."

"Not mine," Nico murmured. He placed his hand over Will's and pressed his hot palm closer, eyes falling half closed. "You should be asleep."

"Okay . . ." Will sighed, his own eyes fluttering shut again. Nico bent his head to touch his forehead to Will's, dark hair caught between them, tangling with bright curls.

"No more bad dreams, Will," he whispered, and then let the darkness of Will's dreams rise and claim his mind.

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><p><strong>Small jump back in time! This time from Will's point of view.<strong>

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><p>"Will."<p>

That voice . . . Will would have known that voice a million miles away. He rolled over and opened his eyes blearily. He could see Nico's face above him, washed in half light and shadows, and through Will's blurred vision he looked like a watercolor painting of black and ruddy gold.

"Hey," Will said, his voice coming out low and husky with sleep.

"Hey," Nico said back. His voice was very soft, so Will just concentrated on his mouth, on the shadows caught between his thin lips and the way one side was tilted up, just a little bit. Will's gaze flicked up to Nico's eyes. The firelight had turned them warm, like melted chocolate. Nico was looking at him with an expression Will couldn't place, as it wasn't a scowl or a glare, or even broody, but something unimaginably gentle that softened all his sharp edges and soothed every ragged breath.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice hushed and unassuming. Will looked around, and was disconcerted to find himself in what must be Nico's bed in Cabin 13. His head was full of cotton candy, and he couldn't for the life of him remember coming there, or why. "I don't know . . ." Something niggled at the back of his brain, a trickle of fear, wet grass by the basketball court, Hazel's dark brown hands, and sinking into some place soft and dark where the fear couldn't find him. _I think . . ._

"Nightmares," he said, trying to remember what about. "Wanted to see you." The words slipped out before he could stop them, and Will thought if he wasn't so damn sleepy he would be blushing like crazy. Was Nico blushing? No, now Will could see it wasn't the firelight making Nico flush, but blurry specks of dark red spattered across his face and staining his clothes. Will lifted a heavy hand and brought it against Nico's cool cheek, feeling the flecks of dried blood catch his skin. Was he hurt? "You're covered in blood . . ."

Nico looked pretty damned tired himself as Will felt his hand cover his own. "Not mine," Nico said, his lips barely moving.

Oh.

Before Will could think that thought through properly he felt another wave of sleepiness crash over him. It was immediately ten times harder to keep his eyes open.

"You should be asleep." Nico voice was distant and fading far away. _Sleep . . ._

"Okay . . ." Will tried to agree but the word came out more air than sound. He didn't remember closing his eyes, but he suddenly realized the world had gone dark. He was falling, falling freely through the darkness and Nico's voice echoed softly in his mind, _"No more bad dreams, Will."_

* * *

><p>In Will's dream, Nico was standing next to him in a black skull tee-shirt, his sword hanging at his side. Will looked at him in bewilderment. Nico raised an eyebrow.<p>

"What?"

"Are you really here?" Will asked.

Nico tilted his head consideringly. "I think so."

"Oh." Will looked away, not quite sure what to do with that information. They were standing on solid black and white tiled floor, similar to the stuff in his mom's kitchen in Florida, but their surroundings shifted in and out of the shadows, never looking like anything in particular.

"Where are we?"

Nico shrugged. "This is your dream. You control it."

Even in dreams, Nico was cryptic and unhelpful.

"What does _that _mean?" Will asked exasperatedly.

"Dreams are just you taking a dip in your subconscious. Don't hope or wish for something to happen. Expect it to."

It couldn't possibly be that easy. Will huffed and turned his attention back to the scenery. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought of the rest of his mom's kitchen: pale yellow walls, dirty pots and pans all over the place because she hated doing the dishes, half dead plants on the windowsill by the sink that only Will ever remembered to water. The sugary smell of pecan pie in the oven, the windows and doors thrown open wide to let the heat out and the sunshine in.

Will cracked one eye open and took a peek.

Nothing.

Will let out an annoyed breath that turned into something like a squeak as he felt Nico come up behind him, rest his chin on Will's shoulder and wrap his arms around his waist. Will placed his hands over Nico's, resting low on his stomach, and leaned back into his chest, laughing breathlessly; feeling dazed.

"Am I making you do this?" he wondered aloud.

"I don't know," Nico mumbled against his shoulder. "Do you expect me to do this?"

"I – no . . ." Will was finding it hard to concentrate as Nico pressed his mouth to the side of his neck and trailed his lips up and down.

"What do you expect to happen?" Nico breathed against his skin.

"I don't . . . _know_," Will said, his brow furrowing. He tried to think about it clearly: what did he expect to happen? What if this wasn't a dream, what would he expect then?

Abruptly, Nico vanished.

Cold air rushed in to fill the space at Will's back. Will whipped around frantically, eyes searching in desperation for a figure in the darkness.

"NICO!" He was gone, vanished without a trace. Without even saying goodbye. Will felt something cold and hard sink into his stomach, choking off his air. Nico . . .

"Gods dammit, Solace!" Will spun back around and felt hot shards of relief prickle his skin. Nico glared back at him from the other side of their circle of tiles, looking distinctly ruffled. "I tell you to expect something, and the first thing that happens is you send me away?!"

"I didn't send you away," Will said, running up to him and stopping just short of sending them both crashing to the ground. His fingers twitched to grasp Nico's hand, but he knew the chances of that happening were less than zero. "You just disappeared."

"Hmph." For some reason Nico did not look particularly happy to hear that. He stared at Will thoughtfully and then turned away. "Fine. Come on."

"Where are we going?" Will asked. He expected Nico to start walking, or maybe use the shadows to transport them somewhere, but to his surprise he felt Nico take his hand and lace their fingers together securely. Will looked at him in surprise.

Nico's mouth twitched into an almost-smile. "Some place with good dreams. Hold on tight."

Will gripped Nico's hand as hard as he dared. His vision blurred into grey mist and then snapped unexpectedly back into place. He and Nico were in the Hypnos cabin, with its hushed music and its occupants sleeping even in their dreams. Clovis was in his usual armchair and wrapped in a cozy looking afghan.

"Clovis." Nico rapped his knuckles sharply on the side of his head as if knocking on a door. Will thought it seemed a bit unnecessary, but it did the trick. Clovis started awake and looked around drowsily, rubbing his large, calf brown eyes.

"Oh. Hey, Nico. Did I pull you off course again?"

"Not this time." Nico turned to Will. "Clovis is better with dreams than I am. He can help."

Will nodded uncertainly to Clovis, who gave him a sleepy smile. "Hi. Clovis, son of Hypnos. Welcome to Cabin Fifteen, central of all dream activity. How can I help you tonight?"

"Will's been having nightmares," Nico said, before Will himself could open his mouth.

"I see." A pair of round spectacles appeared on Clovis' nose and a clipboard in his hand. He peered over the spectacles at Will with professional interest, looking more awake in his dream than he ever did conscious, and clicked a pen that had certainly not been there before. "What kind of nightmares? Are these memories? Prophetic? Do you think someone might be sending them to you?"

"Um, no?" Will frowned, trying to remember. "Just bad memories and . . . I don't know. Nightmares. Does it matter what they are about?"

"It might," Clovis said, scribbling on the clipboard. "All right, I'll hook you up. Gimme a second." He closed his eyes again. After a few moments of silence, he started snoring.

"Um . . ." Will looked to Nico for help.

Nico squeezed his hand. "Wait. Look."

A door appeared in front of them, glowing a dim, ghostly blue. Will reached out with his free hand. The door swung open as soon as his fingers brushed the handle. A blast of warn air rushed into the room, smelling of sweet, sugary pecan pie and sunshine.

Will moved to step through and then stopped as he realized that Nico had let go of his hand and wasn't following. He looked back at him questioningly. "Aren't you coming?"

"No," said Nico, smiling faintly. "This is your dream. Besides, I should go back." He his eyes went slightly blank, as if he was gazing at something far away. "My own nightmares are stronger in the dark. I don't want get caught unaware."

"Oh. But . . ." Will didn't now what he was going to say. '_Stay with me anyway_'? Reluctantly he stepped forward. He was halfway through the door when a thought struck him. This was a dream, right? This strange world where Nico would touch him freely and nothing felt real . . .

"Nico . . ."

Nico looked at him questioningly. He was still standing next to a snoring Clovis' armchair, one hand gripping the hilt of his sword as if for reassurance against the threat of possible nightmares. His eyes were dark and tired, with that lingering sadness that seemed to never completely leave his expression. Will suddenly wanted to forget the door and the good dreams, wanted to move back across the room to take Nico's hand again and never let go.

"I –" Will started. "I really . . . Nico, I really –"

Suddenly Nico was right in front of him, so close they were nose to nose. Will's words caught in his throat and he thought he might have stopped breathing.

"Tell me when you wake up," Nico whispered, and then his hands slammed into Will's chest and Will was falling, falling through the door and into his dream.

* * *

><p><em>Nico was grinning wildly, his dark eyes brimming with manic fire behind wraparound ray bans. Will was sitting next to him in the passenger's seat, his sandaled feet propped up on the dashboard.<em>

"_Where are we going!?" he asked over the roar of the red spider maserati's tires against the dusty desert road. They were racing along at a completely illegal speed through endless barren terrain, whipping past scrubby bushes and sand with enough force to blow them away. The hot desert sun beat down on their heads and shoulders, and the dry wind scrabbled mercilessly at their clothes and cracked lips, smelling oddly of butter, sugar and pecans. Low mountains lined the distant horizon, to far away to be sure whether they were real or just a mirage conjured by the blistering heat._

_Nico laughed, and it was such a free and joyous sound that Will had to laugh too. "Wherever we want!" he cried._

_Up ahead, the sky was black with heavy dark clouds, and sheets of rain fell in a perfectly straight line across the desert ground, cutting the landscape in two: dark, cool and rainy, hot, blinding and bone dry._

_Will suddenly realized that Nico's left hand was only loosely gripping the steering wheel, and that the other was clasped tightly in his own. Nico turned to grin at him._

"_Wherever we want to go."_

_They chased the sunlight to the very edge and then raced forward into the storm._

* * *

><p>Will woke up as soon as the sun hit his face. Light trickled through the windows in the Hades cabin, the pale, sticky beams immediately finding his eyelids and prying them open with insistent fingers. He blinked sleepily, rubbed his eyes, and found himself lying in a very comfy bed, his nose just barely touching Nico's jean clothed hip.<p>

Nico was lying next to him, propped up on the pillows with his legs stretched out in front of him, bare ankles crossed. At some point in the night, Will had slid off the pillows and down towards the middle of the bed, resulting in their slightly awkward alignment.

Will propped himself up on his forearms, realizing as he did that someone had bothered to pull the comforter up over his shoulders while he was sleeping. Somehow he didn't think it had been Hazel.

Will turned to look at Nico and opened his mouth, a question burning on the tip of his tongue. His mouth suddenly went dry; he closed it and swallowed hard.

Nico was leaning against the headboard; his fine white hand paused in the action of turning the page of the very old, very delicate looking book he appeared to be reading. The bruising circles under his deep set eyes had darkened after another sleepless night, but what really caught Will's eye was that Nico had obviously just gotten out of the shower. His shirt stuck damply to his thin shoulders, and his dark hair shone slick and wet as it stuck to his cheeks and forehead, flicking up in little curls at his temples and against his neck, his skin faintly flushed from the steam and scrubbed clean of blood.

A sudden urge to touch Nico's face rose unbidden in Will's chest. He wanted to run his hand through his thick, dark wet hair, wanted to trace the starkly visible bones and contours of each separate feature, wanted to press his palm flat against Nico's cheek and feel his cool skin in the very whorls of his fingertips. He wanted to do all this and more, without the cover of sleep or dreams like he had last night.

But it wasn't nighttime anymore, neither of them were asleep, and it wasn't a dream. Will had never disliked the sunlight until its bare clarity reminded him of every reason why touching Nico was a big no-no.

Nico raised a single dark eyebrow, his expression bringing Will out of his reverie. Will flushed and looked away, embarrassed to have been caught staring.

"Have a nice dream?" Nico asked blandly, turning back to his book.

"Yes," Will muttered, trying very hard to not look at the little rivulets of water dripping from Nico's hair, tracing his hollow cheeks, dipping under his chin, sliding down the pale, slender curve of his neck and soaking into his shirt.

Apparently he just had no willpower whatsoever when it came to Nico, because 'trying very hard' wasn't doing schist.

"What was it about?"

"Hmm?" Will glanced up to see Nico looking at him questioningly. "Oh. What was . . . dream. Right. Umm . . ." He cast around blindly for an answer, and landed on the truth. Or at least, part of it. Sort of.

"I was driving my dad's car," he said. "Some place in the desert. Went as fast as I could go."

Nico stared at him with those tired dark eyes, and Will felt like he was staring right through him, dissecting him without even trying, picking apart his soul and finding the inconsequential lie like a unwanted piece of fuzz on a coat. In other words, Nico looked like he didn't believe him for a second.

"Alright," said Nico mildly. "Sounds fun." He then proceeded to ignore Will in favor of his book, which was practically falling apart and had already lost its cover, so Will had no idea what it was about.

They stayed like that for little while, with Nico concentrating on the book and ignoring Will's blatant staring, while Will tried to think about saying something, or possibly even getting up, as his siblings were no doubt already awake and wondering where he was. He kept getting distracted by the flutter of Nico's dark eyelashes, and the flash of pretty white skin and stark blue veins on the inside of his wrist as he turned another page.

After several minutes of this, Nico either found a good stopping place or just gave up on ignoring the attention. He tossed the book onto the bedside table and looked down at Will.

"Scoot over, please," he said. "The sun is up. I need to sleep."

Will obediently shifted out of the middle and over to the side of the bed next to the wall, wondering despondently if Nico would tell him to get out of his cabin completely.

But Nico just slid down to occupy the warm space where Will had been previously, pulling the comforter up to his shoulders and curling onto his side facing Will, his head resting on his arm. Will watched in amazement as he closed his eyes, let out a deep breath through his nose . . . and promptly fell asleep.

Will watched him breathe for a minute, _in and out,_ before he had to squeeze his eyes shut. Gods. He was lying in bed, in _Nico di Angelo's _bed - _with_ _Nico di Angelo_. He would never sleep again.

Instead of getting up, going back to his cabin to give his siblings some half-hearted excuse and then meekly going to the infirmary to begin overseeing everyone else's shift, Will opened just one pale blue eye and peeked over at Nico again. He was still asleep. Will watched water drip off the ends of his thick dark hair and slither down to the tip of his strong nose that widened endearingly at the end. The water droplet's trail slipped down to trace the light curve of his mouth, lips faintly parted as he breathed in and out evenly, and finally fell to the sheets and was absorbed into the black cotton.

Will stared at the spot it had disappeared with an odd sense of disappointment. Then he snuck another quick look at Nico's sleeping face. He looked much younger asleep, and once again Will was reminded that he was only fourteen.

The urge to touch his face reappeared, stronger than before. Will wanted to hide his own face under the covers as if to keep himself from temptation, but if he didn't think it was good idea to touch Nico's face, the rest of him was even more off limits, and under the covers there was nothing _but_ the rest of him. Just thinking about that gave Will such a head rush that he felt quite dizzy.

Will glanced again at Nico. He couldn't read thoughts, could he? Will wouldn't put it past him. He always seemed to know exactly what everyone else was thinking or feeling, except when Will wanted him to.

He was staring openly again, but couldn't be bothered to care.

"_Someday,"_ he thought recklessly. _"Someday I'll be able to touch you, and neither of us will be afraid."_

That morning Will didn't get up at the crack of dawn with the rest of his siblings. He didn't spend the day smiling at rude patients, or trying and ultimately failing to improve his archery. That morning he lay in Nico di Angelo's bed and read an ancient, falling apart book that turned out to be a ridiculously old copy of a Dickens novel translated into perfect Greek, while the boy he was coming to love slept soundly beside him.

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><p><strong>So, yeah. Review? Pleeeeeease?<strong>


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